By zhanqun1 
Germany: Virtual power plants are commercialized
Virtual power plants have been commercialized in Germany. Its main business is to sell electricity produced by medium-sized renewable power plants above 100kW in the wholesale market, optimizing its electricity sales in the day ahead market, making these plants into virtual power plant resources.
Virtual power plants benefit units with higher flexibility. In addition to renewable power plants, gas-fired cogeneration, battery storage, emergency generators and demand response can be used as virtual power plant resources. Its main application scenario is to guide the power plant system to optimize the cost of electricity generation and optimize the transaction income through the flexible electricity price in the power market.
In Germany, the virtual power plant on the middle and downstream products have been gradually complete, virtual power plants can directly participate in the power market for trading, but also participate in the grid system auxiliary services (secondary, tertiary frequency modulation) to charge service commissions, and for different users have the corresponding sales of electricity packages.
Depending on the operator, virtual power plants in Germany can be broadly divided into three types: independent virtual power plant operators, large power companies (multinational, regional and municipal enterprises), and new market players.
Europe: The industrial chain has a clear division of labor, and the business model focuses on the power generation side
Europe’s virtual power plant virtual power plant operators, usually by an independent power generation enterprise or part of the grid operators (TSO, TransmissionSystemOperator) to provide services.
From the Angle of industry chain: Europe’s power system is divided into power generation, transmission, distribution and sale electricity link, and power grid operation main body can be divided into the grid operators and distribution network operation (DSO, DistributionNetworkOperator). Transmission network operators are responsible for the control and operation of the transmission network, including the monitoring and control of circuit breakers and switches in the grid and the voltage of the transmission network. Distribution network operators are responsible for the distribution and management of energy and delivery to end consumers, which is a competitive business. European countries divide the jurisdiction of transmission network operators according to the region, and rely on transnational grid links, which is a regional monopoly business.
Based on the above division of labor, commercial virtual power plants in Europe are currently mainly serviced by independent third-party operators, generation companies or Tsos. Four operators in Germany trade electricity across borders by participating in the European interconnection grid. The number of Dsos in Germany exceeds 900, each responsible for more than 900 distribution network areas in Germany.
As distributed renewable energy (DER, DistributedEnergyResource) direct input distribution network, and DER intermittent and randomness, distribution network load pressure, therefore the upstream operators dominate the virtual power plant arises at the historic moment.
Focus on power generation measurement to achieve cost reduction and efficiency increase
In the early 20th century, Europe began to use renewable energy to generate electricity. By 2020, the share of renewable energy generation in the EU will reach 38%. Due to the relatively dispersed power generation resources in Europe, the early virtual power plant mainly focused on the power supply side, aggregated power generation resources, and helped renewable energy to stably connect to the grid and coordinate power generation.
From the perspective of revenue methods: on the one hand, virtual power plants can help power generation enterprises reduce costs and increase efficiency, and obtain service fee sharing. On the other hand, virtual power plants can directly participate in power spot trading and auxiliary
Services, access to ancillary services and share of electricity trading revenue.
China: Virtual power plant development is in the initial stage
At present, the domestic virtual power plant is still in the initial stage, mainly in the pilot demonstration. In China, demand response is the mainstream, while virtual power plants focus on increasing supply, resulting in reverse power flow phenomenon. The development of virtual power plant can be divided into three stages: invitation type, market type and cross-space autonomous scheduling virtual power plant. At present, China’s virtual power plant is in the transition stage from invitation type to market type, showing the following characteristics:
The virtual power plant policy needs to be improved, and special policies at the national and provincial levels are urgently needed.
At present, the national level has not issued a special virtual power plant policy, At the provincial level, only Shanghai, Guangdong and Shanxi have respectively issued the Reply on agreeing to Further carry out the work of Shanghai Power Demand Response and Virtual Power Plant (2020.9.16), the Implementation Rules of Guangzhou Virtual Power Plant (Draft for Comments) (2021.6.30) and the Implementation Plan for the Construction and Operation Management of Virtual Power Plant (2022.6.23) ).
Policies related to virtual power plants mainly involve demand response, auxiliary services, etc. In order to mobilize the user-side resources to respond to the enthusiasm of the power system, on the basis of the demand-side pilot in 2013, 14 provinces and regions, including Shanghai, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Shandong and Henan, issued new demand-response policies. The provinces and regions of Jiangsu, Hubei, Liaoning, Hunan, Henan, Anhui, Fujian, Guizhou and Jiangxi, as well as the five major regions of Northeast and East China, have issued or revised their power auxiliary service policies. The energy authorities in North China, Central China, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and other places have opened third-party entities and user resources such as virtual power plants to participate in auxiliary service identities for peak regulation.
At present, the virtual power plant mainly participates in the dispatching operation control of the power grid as the dispatching object, and participates in the power market transaction as the market subject, so as to realize the aggregation and coordination of the flexible resources of the power grid.
On May 20, 2022, the virtual power plant platform deployed in SDI Shenzhen Energy Development Co., Ltd. became the first case of virtual power plant dispatching user loads to participate in the power spot market for profit in China. Pilot construction of virtual power plants has been carried out in Guangdong, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Hebei.